(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information service communication network system and a session management server and, more particularly, to a session management server for carrying out a communication procedure for establishing or disconnecting a session between a client terminal and an application server in response to a request from the client terminal in an information service communication network to which a plurality of application servers are connected, and the information service communication network system using the session management server
(2) Description of the Related Art
As networks running an Internet Protocol (IP) come into popular use, users of various kinds of information services provided by content providers via the Internet are increasing. Application servers for information services include, typically, streaming servers which distribute content information such as music and movies; besides, for example, VM/UM servers for e-mail, conference call servers which allow a plurality of uses to join in an interactive teleconference, and others.
In order to receive an information service from an application server owned by a content provider, an Internet user must register in advance a user ID and user authentication information, such as password required for the user authentication. Registering the user ID and authentication information is required for each service to be provided by the content provider.
A client terminal owned by an Internet user is connected to a target application server via a session management server specified by a contract between the user and the service provider. As the session management server, for example, a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) server is known. SIP is a protocol for establishing and terminating a session in IP multimedia communication, implementation of which was specified by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) RFC3261.